This blog is about The Big Picture - information and insights about what goes on in the world outside our borders - and what it means for Americans. Unless otherwise specified, all photos from Deena Stryker archive.

Monday, April 16, 2007

HELP IS ON THE WAY

While the media is still playing it safe when it comes to the gap between congress and those who determine its membership, there’s been a tectonic shift on two less immediate fronts.

This morning on CNN an astronaut was seen “running the Boston marathon” in space; and the weather reporter expressed a concern for coastal erosion in Rhode Island in the wake of the latest nor’easter.

Neither of these events has been given airtime by chance. Global warming is now recognized as a worthy subject of reporting, with big companies vying for first place as saviors. And to show that we’ll someday be doing everyday things in space, a FedEx ad shows it picking up packages on the moon and whisks them to their earthly destination, to the relief of lunar residents.

Not long ago, someone associated with NASA, I think it was Jim Hansen, appearing on Democracy Now, told Amy Goodman that plans were in the works to eventually move populations to space, the powers that be having recognized that “we’re not going to make it here on earth”.

I didn’t focus on the remark until t turned out that a book I’d ordered out of curiosity for the title: “The Survival Imperative” by William E. Burrows, was about protecting earth from stray space object AND the program to colonize space to ensure our continued survival.

And yet, the Don Imus story took up about half of every news program for an entire week, including the Sunday talk shows. I know the golden rule for journalists is that what’s happening here today is more newsworthy than what might happen in the future on the moon. But as a result, it’s Madison Avenue that tells us what the future holds. I guess the powers that be think we’ll judge our failure to make it on earth less harshly that way: for them, only failure in Iraq is unacceptable.

P.S. Last night’s PBS special “America at the Crossroads” was worth watching even though it ran from 9 pm to almost 11. Hosted by Bob MacNeill of MacNeill/Lehrer fame, it is a markedly better attempt to provide a context for Al Queda’s attacks against the West than was the special by Christian Amanpour on CNN a few months ago, even though they used some of the same materials. The second installment is tonight at the same time. Hopefully it will spell out the choices we face at the crossroads.

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Welcome to Otherjones!

The alternative press is replete with despair and ‘hope’, neither of which is helpful. ‘Squawking’ may alleviate some of the pain Americans experience at being identified with a government that brutalizes Others at will, but it doesn’t change the ‘facts on the ground’. As for hope, it is an easy cop-out: in the present state of the world, we can never be certain that tomorrow will come. Whether a barefoot child in Africa or a hedge-fund manager, all of us are the potential victims of hubris.

This blog aims to prepare my readers in ways more important than stockpiling food and bandages for whatever happens, as we transition from an American century to a world century, helping them see through the web of lies with which we are being controlled.

Having lived for years at a time in half a dozen ‘foreign’, countries — learning their languages and histories — I have a unique ability to identify events that bear watching. That life, however, could not provide ‘retirement benefits’, so if you appreciate the unique combination of information and insight that characterizes my work, I hope you will integrate a small donation to Otherjones into your budget.

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If You Had Been Watching....

One of the worst aspects of the US media landscape is its neglect of what goes on in the rest of the world. When I returned from nineteen years of living in France, where I sometimes watched CNN’s excellent coverage of world events, I was surprised that in the US, CNN offered nothing comparable. I called the main editorial office in New York and was told ’Americans aren’t interested in foreign affairs’, revealing one one the reasons why the US government gets away with wreaking havoc around the world: Americans have no information that would prompt them to protest their county’s actions abroad.

The fact is that several countries’ governments — aside from the British — fund international television channels. These include France 24, NHK (Japan) , Al-Jazeera (Qatar) RT (Russia) and Telesur (Latin America). These channels usually broadcast in English, Spanish and Arabic, using native speakers, enabling most people in most parts of the world to hear news that their national outlets do not cover and get a broad window onto the world.

Meanwhile, Americans are told that the channel that is most significant for them, RT, is propaganda!

RT is significant not only because, like the other foreign channels it offers a wide range of programs but because it includes opinions from many well-known Americans who are barred from our own mainstream media.

From time to time I will signal significant news stories covered by these foreign channels that are absent from our own.